“How under the sun did you come to fall off old Dan?” her grandfather asked, as he laid down his long rifle and gathered her tenderly in his arms. Scott stepped back a pace or two out of earshot.
“I was sitting on him sideways and he shied at a hound on top of the bank down below Sanders’.”
“And this gentleman?” he asked, looking Scott squarely in the eye.
“He found me in the road and brought me home,” she replied shortly.
The old man straightened up with his burden and bowed solemnly to Scott. “I thank you, sir.”
“I certainly am glad to have been of service to you,” Scott replied cordially. “I hope to have the pleasure of calling on you in a day or so if I may, so I will not intrude on you any longer at present.”
Jarred frankly looked him over from head to foot. “If you will be so kind as to wait till I have taken the girl in the house I would like to speak to you for a moment.”
“Certainly,” Scott answered politely. He liked the old man’s frank, straightforward gaze, but it did not seem to him that steady eye looked on him with much favor. Perhaps he was no more grateful than his granddaughter. In less than five minutes he came out again to join Scott. He came straight to the point.
“Sir, I am sorry that I could not invite you in, and I regret that I have to appear discourteous to a man who has rendered me the service you have.” Scott listened in silent astonishment and the old man continued. “I owe you a debt which I can never repay for the kindness you have shown my grandchild, but any man who aids my enemies can never be more to me than a creditor, as much as I would like to have it otherwise.”
Scott was astonished at the old man’s courtly manner and fine English. He did not learn till later that many of these mountaineers were descendants of the old Huguenot families who were driven out of France and had retained a wonderful purity of speech. He answered as earnestly as he could.